Thanksgiving: Have a better turkey

Brining is
all the rage this Thanksgiving, and while I have no doubt that it works, there
are some considerations to take into account which makes injecting the way to
go.

To brine or
not to brine

Let’s take a
quick look at what brining is first.
Brining is nothing more than submerging a meat in a saline
solution. Of course the recipes for the
brining solutions stretch far and wide, but it is a reliable way to introduce
additional moisture and flavor into meats.

Nerd alert!
Nerd alert! The following section gets a little technical. Please feel free to skip ahead if you’re not
interested. Brining works because of
something called osmosis. That is the
process in which a liquids and/or solids balance their pressures by displacing
one another until a uniform pressure is reached.

So in the
case of a turkey, the water permeates the muscle tissue in an attempt to
equalize the pressure. Salt breaks down,
or softens, the water’s surface tension allowing the water to get into smaller
spaces. The salt also acts as a
preservative and flavoring agent.

Brining
problems

While
brining is all well and good there are a few things to think about. First is storage. Brining a turkey required a very large pot at
best, or a very large, very thick, plastic bag at least and the whole thing
must be kept refrigerated. I don’t know
about you, but my refrigerator is stuffed to the edges of the shelves right
now. There is no way I have the room to
accommodate a huge pot full of turkey and salt water.

Secondly,
brining takes a long time. Unless you
are willing to commit at least two days to this process don’t even bother, and
up to five days is optimal. You see
while the saline solution does its magic all by itself, it’s not quick about
it.

One more
consideration is that the flavor of the brine will not get into all of the meat
tissue, at least not in 3-5 days.

The
injection connection

There is a
supremely better way to bring flavor to every part of the
turkey…injecting. Injecting is nothing
new to South Louisiana. The good folks
at Cajun Injector introduced a home injection kit over 20 years ago, but
injecting has been around for much longer than that.

If you read
the labels of some produced hams they will say “water added”. By law they have to disclose that. Well how do you think they get that water in
there? That’s right either by injecting
or pressure brining which is essentially the same thing.

Injecting
works by immediately introducing a flavored solution directly into the muscle
tissue by way of a big ass syringe. Once
there the solution just kind of sits around until the meat is cooked. Then once the natural liquids in the meat
start to move around and work their way to the surface, they take the injecting
liquid along for the ride.

This process
disperses seasoning and flavor throughout the meat like brining could only hope
to. What’s better is that you only need
to inject the meat about one hour before cooking, and it takes up no more
fridge space. Nice right?

To make or
buy the injection liquid

Making your
own injection liquid is pretty tricky stuff.
You have all sorts of things to consider like viscosities, saline
contents, seasoning proportions, etc.
The truth is that there are companies that have nearly perfected the
stuff for you. Cajun Injector, Louisiana
Seasoning, and Tony Chachere’s are three of the most widely known and used
brands. What’s more is some even have the syringe attached to the bottle.

So unless
you are experienced in experimental cooking and recipe development skip making
your own and just go buy some.

It’s as easy
as this: inject, season the outside, roast (or fry) as normal, serve, and sit
back and wait for the compliments.